Larger than Screens

Filmmaking on the African continent was expanded from the beginning, in every way. What was expanded? Western cinema: through new and contradictory perspectives, through other modes of narration and representation, through a cinema that had been banned until the 1960s as a result of colonial legislation. If the confrontation with one's own image and history constitutes the core of cinematic practice, the idea of expanding already begins with the fabrication of the image. Not to forget the sound, the speaking, the voice, the soundscape. But the cinema as a place has also been larger than the screen from the beginning, expanded, by the reactions of the audience and often by an experimental mobile set-up. Digital technology has long since made filmmaking, distribution, and viewing opportunities easier and cheaper in many ways, and in that sense has expanded access. What impulses does this make possible? What radius and what components of expansion do filmmakers demand?